He looked every inch the successful young go-getter with a desirable home, flash car and golden future.

A gifted Masters scholar from a wealthy business family, Frazer Goodwillie even had #20,000 in cash stashed in his bedroom.

But the 24-year-old, set for a career in science, was hiding a dark side.

And when police raided his town house, he was exposed as a cocaine-snorting drug dealer running a trade in cannabis.

Now disgraced Goodwillie is beginning a three-and-a-half year sentence behind bars and facing further court action to strip him of every penny and possession his illegal trafficking brought him.

Judge Guy Whitburn told him: "You are highly-educated, come from a devoted and affluent family, and you have pleaded guilty to extremely serious offences.

"It's very unusual for these courts to deal with somebody like you, with all the advantages you have had.

"I intend this to be a deterrent sentence. It has to be shown that those who, like you, come from a background where you have had every advantage, will be dealt with severely when you are caught."

Judge Whitburn adjourned confiscation proceedings until September, but ordered Goodwillie hand over all details of his assets, including bank accounts. They remain frozen.

Goodwillie, from Tenth Avenue, Heaton, admitted five charges of supplying cannabis, another of possessing cocaine with intent, two more of possessing cannabis with intent, and a charge of possessing ecstasy for his own use.

His world fell apart on February 9, when police with a search warrant arrived at the door of the #185,000 house given to him by his parents. They found he had three ecstasy tablets and #500 of cocaine hidden in his underpants.

When they searched his room they recovered 20 bags of cannabis worth more than #1,600, three sets of scales and a batch of self-seal bags.

And in the wall void officers discovered #20,000, all in #20 notes. Goodwillie, who had another #1,500 in a metal box under a cupboard, was taken into custody.

And he was soon giving detectives a detailed account of the drug business he had been running among a group of regular customers.

"He was to say in relation to supplying cannabis he would leave the house in his Toyota Rav 4 and drive to whoever's house he was to drop `the gear' off," said Robert Adams, prosecuting.

"It would be at weekends, a few times each day, and he accepted it had been a regular event during the previous seven to eight months."

Goodwillie went on to tell police he used cocaine himself, but would sometimes share his supply with friends.

He confessed cutting the cocaine with ketamine, a relaxant used by vets to treat horses and found during the house search.

He claimed he had bought the cocaine he was caught with for #500 wholesale from a work colleague he refused to name.

"The defendant gave various estimates as to the amount he had made dealing in cannabis from #3,500 to #5,000 and said that was part of the #20,000 recovered from his bedroom," Mr Adams said.

"He couldn't give a full explanation how he came to have more than #21,000 in his possession but said some of it was money he made by letting rooms in the premises."

Eric Elliott, defending, said Goodwillie had been "indulged" by his parents after they recovered from bankruptcy to rebuild their substantial business, and he in turn repaid them by becoming "a model son and student".

But when the Masters Degree he started in September 2002 turned out to be "dispiriting and empty," Goodwillie feared he was letting his family down and turned to drugs.

Mr Elliott said the shock of their son's arrest and the revelation of his drug dealing had come as "every parent's nightmare" to his mother and father, a wealthy Teesside businessman.

"They were determined, right or wrong, their children should never suffer as they had suffered following the bankruptcy," said Mr Elliott.

"The defendant therefore enjoyed the fruits of their success. With reflection both his parents and the defendant would be the first to say he was indulged."

Once he was released back to the family home as part of his stringent bail conditions, his parents quickly rallied behind him, the court heard.

"They immediately gave him a job in the family business but effectively on the shop floor. There he has regained his respect in what is a significant enterprise," he said.

But passing sentence, Judge Whitburn said: "It's become common place to regard such drugs as recreation. They are not. They are dangerous drugs and those who use such drugs are often led into much more serious crimes."